Welcome to Transfigurations! This blog is intended to serve the orthodox Anglican community and the wider Christian community. We pray that all that is posted here will be faithful to the Scriptures as the inspired word of God, speak the truth in love, edify, bless and transform this local body of Christ, and be an impetus for revival, repentance, prayer and intercession!
Monday, August 31, 2015
There Are No Unanswered Prayers
Courtney Reissig
August 28, 2015
Excerpt:
Sometimes God answers our prayers immediately. We pray for a job offer in the morning and get a phone call by dinner. We pray for clarity in a difficult circumstance and find resolution by week’s end. But sometimes he answers prayers more slowly. Sometimes he’s working behind the scenes of our trials, yet we can’t see his handiwork—leading us to feel like our prayer has fallen on deaf ears. When we are in the position of waiting for God to act—to remedy a situation, to heal an illness, to bring a wayward child home—and we don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel, it can overwhelm us and cause unbelief to surface. Like most people, many prayers leave me wondering if I’ll ever hear an answer in this life.
We aren’t the first to experience such silence.
Abraham waited years and years for God to provide the promised son (Gen. 21:1–7). Joseph suffered silently and alone in Egypt until adulthood, waiting for God to reunite him with his family. On more than one occasion the Israelites faced captivity for hundreds of years as they waited on God to deliver them. They waited for the promised land in the wilderness. And they waited on the Messiah to be born.
In each of these circumstances, the waiting lasted far longer than anticipated. And at many points Israel trusted in what was seen, not in what was unseen.
When God is silent, we’re often tempted to doubt his goodness. We’re tempted to doubt his promises can really be true. We doubt he will answer our prayers. the restimage
‘All Lives Matter’ March Draws 20,000; Obama targets Chicago attorney who is helping persecuted Christians...more
‘All Lives Matter’ March Draws 20,000
...Led by conservative activist and talk show host Glenn Beck, more than 20,000 people chanting “All Lives Matter” marched the historic civil rights route from Kelly Ingram Park to Birmingham City Hall this morning.
“It’s about taking our church out in the streets,” Beck said. He said marchers came from as far away as China, Dubai and the Netherlands.
Actor Chuck Norris, a conservative activist known for his martial arts, action movies and TV show “Walker, Texas Ranger,” marched about two rows behind Beck. Alveda King, a niece of civil rights activist the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., marched in the front row. Bishop Jim Lowe, pastor of the predominantly black Guiding Light Church in Birmingham, co-organized the march with Beck and marched with him at the front. As a child, Lowe attended Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, where the march started, a headquarters church for the civil rights movement in Birmingham. Lowe and his sisters were in the church when a KKK bomb blew up the church and killed four little girls on Sept. 15, 1963.
“Love is the answer,” Lowe said as he marched. “God is the answer.”...
Black Lives Matter Activists Chant 'Pigs in a Blanket' After Cop Murder Black Lives Matter activists tried to disrupt the Minnesota State Fair on Saturday and marched down the street, shouting a chant that called for the deaths of police officers: “Pigs in a blanket, fry ‘em like bacon!”
The phrase “pigs in a blanket” refers to police officers in body bags and has been used overtly by a Black Lives Matter-influenced activist who murdered two police officers.
Video shows that, as the group happily chanted about murdering police officers, they had a police escort protecting their safety and First Amendment rights...
Obama targets Chicago attorney who is helping persecuted Christians ...Some find it ironic that the Obama administration is going after a lawyer who helps persecuted Iraqi Christians gain asylum while it welcomed and granted cart blanch asylum for more than 68,000 unaccompanied alien children from Central America last summer.
At the same time Central Americans are being greeted with a “catch and release” policy at the border, a group of 27 Assyrian Christians who made it to the border earlier this year are being detained indefinitely.
“The way that some of our federal judges view the plight of Christians in Iraq and the way some of the adjudicators view them, you would honestly think ‘what is wrong with these people?’” DeKelaita, who lives in a suburb of Chicago with his wife of 25 years, Ester, and two sons, told WND. “Why can’t they see what the rest of the world sees?”
He said one judge told him: “To argue that Christians in Iraq are being targeted for their religious beliefs is to appeal to either ignorance or emotion.”...
Federal Judge Orders IRS to Disclose WH Requests for Taxpayer Info A federal judge on Friday ordered the Internal Revenue Service to reveal White House requests for taxpayers’ private information, advancing a probe into whether administration officials targeted political opponents by revealing such information.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rejected the IRS’s argument that a law designed to protect the confidentiality of such information protected the public disclosure of such communications with the White House.
The law, 26 U.S. Code § 6103, was passed after the Watergate scandal to protect citizens from retribution by federal officials. Jackson scoffed at the administration’s claims that the statute could be used to shield investigations into whether private tax information had been used in such a manner...
Over 1,000 US Rabbis Pen Open Letter to Congress Opposing Iran DealOver 1,000 American rabbis have signed a letter to Congress, urging US lawmakers not to accept the nuclear accord reached between the P5+1 powers and Iran earlier this summer. The petition, organized by the Zionist Organization of America, calls “upon our Senators and Representatives to consider the dangers that this agreement poses to the United States and our allies, and to vote in opposition to this deal.”...
Building an Islamic State in America, One Church at a Time
Churches fall, mosques rise.
August 27, 2015
Daniel Greenfield
Excerpt:
Islam is conquering Europe. It is also conquering America.
In Syracuse, New York, the Holy Trinity Catholic Church has become a mosque. Despite the church being protected by the Landmark Preservation Board, its crosses were cut down and painted over. After the Islamic terror attacks of September 11, no more planes flew into buildings. Instead they landed at airports disgorging a different sort of conquering army that came with visas instead of boxcutters.
In the decade after 9/11, the number of Muslims in Onondaga County more than doubled. A key role was played by Catholic Charities of Onondaga County, which could not find the money and energy to maintain a church into which generations of immigrations had poured their hopes and dreams, but which served as one of the VOLAGs (voluntary agencies) filling the area with UNHCR approved refugees.
75% of the “refugees” colonizing Syracuse are Muslim. Almost a thousand refugees a year are inflicted on the people of Syracuse who already live in the 23rd poorest city out of the 575 biggest cities in the country. Half the children of Syracuse live in poverty. But each refugee means a $725 check for the VOLAG. Last year that meant a $3 million grant for Catholic Charities.
And while VOLAGs like Catholic Charities cater to migrants, churches are turned into mosques. The North Side, where Catholic Charities has been active in its “charity work” is now full of women in hijabs and the Holy Trinity Church is no more.
Yusuf Soule, who bought the church, explained why he chose it. “The North Side is the magnet for refugees. The two agencies that work with refugees (InterFaith Works and Catholic Charities) are here.”
The more of these magnets we create, the fewer churches and synagogues there will be. Temple Beth El in Syracusewas hit by a Muslim terrorist who set fire to it while shouting, “I did this for you, Allah.”
No one had to set the Holy Trinity Church on fire. The Conference of Catholic Bishops took care of that... the rest
Albert Mohler: Ashley Madison and the Death of Monogamy
August 27, 2015
Excerpt:
It is true that some names listed as account registrations on the business may be fake and some people will surely face false accusations, but when the information is authenticated, exposure will come. That was not what registrants were signing up for when they set up accounts at Ashley Madison.
Given the numbers involved, the exposures are likely to hit nearly every community, millions of families, countless churches, and just about every major corporation and institution in the nation.
Christians face the responsibility to respond to these exposures with the full power of the gospel and the full measure of conviction. This is going to require the courage of every affected congregation, underlining the New Testament’s clear instructions on how to deal with sin in the life of a believer. This moral emergency also calls for the full measure of Christian compassion and care for spouses, families, and friends who are suffering for the sin of others.
But in the larger secular culture, the big question is whether adultery really matters or not. Marriage and monogamy have been subverted from an array of cultural forces. Moral revolutionaries declared war on monogamy, declaring it to be unrealistic, patriarchal, repressive, and antiquated. Popular culture and entertainment glorified virtually any experiment in sexual gratification and often portrayed adultery as the victory of personal autonomy and freedom. States dropped adultery from the law books, stating that “morals legislation” was doomed. Evolutionary anthropologists explained adultery as a natural and expected phenomenon.
The mainstream media seems to know that the Ashley Madison hacking story is big news, but the main concern seems to be more about embarrassment than shamefulness. the rest
An NBC article by Kimbery Hayes Taylor describes the results of 3 studies conducted by Boston Children’s Hospital. In the first study, out of 2,044 parents or guardians surveyed, 79% reported their outlook on life was “more positive” because of their child with Down syndrome.
A second study found that among siblings of children with Down syndrome, 97% expressed feelings of pride for their brother or sister and 88% were convinced that they were better people because of their sibling. This study polled siblings over the age of 12... the rest
I have an image of how I want to interact with my child, and that’s not the kind of interaction I want, not the kind I could maintain. (133)
I’m sorry to say I couldn’t think about raising a child with Down’s. I’m something of a perfectionist. I want the best for my child. I’ve worked hard, I went to Cornell University, I’d want that for my child. I’d want to teach him things he couldn’t absorb. I’m sorry I can’t be more accepting, but I’m clear I wouldn’t want to continue the pregnancy.( 133 – 134)
The bottom line is when my neighbor said to me: “Having a “tard,” that’s a bummer for life.” (91)
(This article brought to mind a fictional novel I read long ago called "The Clowns of God" by Morris West. There is a part where Jesus returns to earth-although some believe it's Him and some don't. At one point, Jesus is at a school or home for children with Down Syndrome and picks up a little child and says:
“I know what you are thinking - you need a sign. What better one could I give than to make this little one whole and new? I could do it, but I will not. I am the Lord and not a conjurer. I gave this mite a gift I denied to all of you - eternal innocence. To you, he looks imperfect but to me he is flawless like the bud that dies unopened or the fledgling that falls from the nest to be devoured by the ants. He will never offend me, as all of you have done. He will never pervert or destroy the work of my Father's hands. He is necessary to you. He will evoke the kindness that will keep you human. His infirmity will prompt you to gratitude for your own good fortune. More! He will remind you every day that I am who I am, that my ways are not yours, and that the smallest dust mite, while in darkest space, does not fall out of my hand. I have chosen you. You have not chosen me. This little one is my sign to you. Treasure him!”quote
The Futility of Enhancing Your Kids ...But what about going beyond lessons and gadgets and actively giving children a genetic advantage with germ-line genetic enhancements. Sounds fantastic doesn't it? Having the smartest, fastest and best-looking children on the block.
Logically, this is about as far as most people get before they say, "Sign me and my kids up!" But ask yourself what enhancing our children really means. It means being trapped forever in a dangerous biological game of "Keeping up with the Jones."...
The primate of the Anglican Church in North America has travelled to Russia to meet with leaders of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church. On 25 Aug 2015 the Most Rev. Foley Beach, accompanied by Bishops Ray Sutton, Keith Ackerman and Kevin Allen, met with Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate (pictured), to discuss the future of Anglican - Orthodox relations. According to a press release from the DECR, the church leaders discussed a wide range of subjects including the recent innovations in moral teaching on human sexuality. The question of women clergy was also raised during the meeting, with Metropolitan Hilarion telling the ANCA that Moscow believed the consecration of women as bishops had impaired relations between the Orthodox and the Church of England. Discussion of closer academic cooperation between Anglicans and the Orthodox were also raised. According to the DECR, the Anglican leaders reaffirmed the ACNA’s commitment to the traditional formularies of the Anglican Church. Archpriest Chad Hatfield, Chancellor of St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York, who had accompanied the ACNA delegation from the US, reported on the newly established links between Nashotah House and Ss Cyril and Methodius Theological Institute of Postgraduate Studies.
'Fanatical Killing of Children' in Syrian Civil War; PP contributions to Senators who voted against defunding...more
Pro-Life? There’s An App For That ...Obviously, these apps are targeted at women who have already decided to keep their babies—who are generally happy that babies have set up shop in their bodies. If a blastocyst, embryo, or fetus is wanted, then it is a baby—a new little person who should be nurtured with the utmost care as he snuggles into his new home in his mother’s safe, cozy uterus.
If said blastocyst, embryo, or fetus is not wanted, well… That’s a different story...
Out-of-Wedlock Births Declining Among Millennials ...Up until now, the majority of babies born to millennials have been outside of wedlock. But that is changing. As the generation is aging and now entering the late 20s and 30s, more college-educated women are starting to have children, and childbearing is shifting from unmarried to married mothers.
Year to year, the rate of marital childbearing is also growing. The percentage of babies born to married millennial women will increase from 49 percent in 2010 to 63 percent in 2017 and to about 77 percent by 2025, according to Demographic Intelligence projections.
“Older and better-educated, millennial women are moving toward family formation, and these women expect to enter parenthood after marriage,” said Sam Sturgeon, president of Demographic Intelligence. “That’s partly because they realize their expectations for a more egalitarian parenting arrangement are more likely to be realized if they marry before having children.”...
...“What about intact specimens?” asks one of the actors. “Oh yeah, I mean if you have intact cases, which we’ve done a lot, we sometimes ship those back to our lab in its entirety,” replies Dyer. “Case” is the clinical term for an abortion procedure. An “intact case” refers to an intact abortion with a whole fetus. “The entire case?” asks an actor. “Yeah, yeah,” says Dyer. “The procurement for us, I mean it can go really sideways, depending on the facility, and then our samples are destroyed,” she explains past botched fetal dissections, “so we started bringing them back even to manage it from a procurement expert standpoint.”...
Planned Parenthood Gave Campaign Contribution to Senators Who Voted Against Defunding ...“Detailed research proves that the abortion lobby pads the pockets of lawmakers. In turn, these lawmakers are willing to stand on the Senate floor, blatantly spewing out the very same lies Planned Parenthood tells the public – all to prevent an abusive organization from being defunded,” LiveAction notes. “According to publicly available federal campaign donation records, every single Senator who voted not to defund Planned Parenthood, except one, has been awarded money from the abortion giant.”...
Major Syrian government bombings on areas east of Damascus have killed at least 247 people in the last 10 days, including 50 children, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has said. The airstrikes are part of an effort to push back rebel groups trying to bring down the administration of President Bashar al-Assad, in a civil war that has raged since 2011...
The investigation began after at least one civilian Defense Intelligence Agency analyst told the authorities that he had evidence that officials at United States Central Command — the military headquarters overseeing the American bombing campaign and other efforts against the Islamic State — were improperly reworking the conclusions of intelligence assessments prepared for policy makers, including President Obama, the government officials said....
Duke Freshman Brian Grasso commented, “I feel as if I would have to compromise my personal Christian moral beliefs to read it.“ Grasso cited the novel’s “graphic visual depictions of sexuality” as one of the reasons why he felt morally compelled to take a stand...
Dyer said to undercover actors that when her company sends out entire heads of aborted babies, “They’ll open the box, go, ‘Oh God!’ So yeah, so many of the academic labs cannot fly like that, they’re not capable.”...
“What would make your lab happy?” asks one of the actors. “Another 50 livers a week,” says Dyer. “We’re working with almost like triple digit number clinics,” Dyer explains, “and we still need more.” She later notes, “Planned Parenthood has volume, because they are a volume institution.”...
The women held rope as if to symbolize their hands being bound and grimaced while the white liquid soaked their cloths and the brick beneath. One woman held a sign that read: "America is not a theocracy. End forced motherhood."...
The Assad regime still appears to have working control of the north-south highway through Homs province, as well as the major central Syrian cities, but otherwise is crumbling.
Isil took Al-Qaryatain and the monastery on August 5, kidnapping an estimated 230 people, including Christians. Some of the older captives have been released, but at least 100 people have been taken as hostages to the de facto Isil capital of Raqqa further to the north...
Thousands of antiabortion activists descended upon Planned Parenthood clinics on Saturday to participate in a nationwide protest aimed at cutting off federal funding for the controversial health-care organization.
The demonstrations unfolded at about 320 clinics around the nation, according to organizers, with some gatherings drawing a few dozen protesters and others drawing hundreds and perhaps thousands more.
The protests kicked off at 9 a.m. Saturday and included speakers, prayer groups and chants, as well as signs distributed by organizers that said “Planned Parenthood sells baby parts.”...
Planned Parenthood Blasts Music That 'Sounds Like It Came From Hell' at Peaceful Protesters ...While standing within the sound of priests and monks praying the rosary in calming rhythm, another sound came out of the abortion mill in front of us, this one hellish. Planned Parenthood piped discordant, eerie horror music out of speakers hidden somewhere on the building (leading me to surmise they had them installed when the place was built for just an occasion like this!).
This is their idea of a sick joke.
We know they are delivering live, whole babies (who are kicking!) and cutting their faces off to extract brains — and they know WE know it. So what do they do? They broadcast their depravity in surround sound. Horror-movie madness is what this is. When will thinking people stand up and see the horror show Planned Parenthood really is? They know they’re killing babies. You know they’re killing babies. The difference is they think it’s funny.
America, you need to get off your couches and stop this revolting corporation from profiting off the blood of our children right now. Get a grip and get in the fight...
Explosion reported at US military facility in Japan
An explosion has been reported at the U.S. military facility in Sagamihara, Japan, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports, citing the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation.
Sagamihara is a city in the Japanese prefecture of Kanagawa, which borders Tokyo.
"We're aware of the report, but we don't have confirmation that the explosion occurred on the base," said Pentagon spokesman U.S. Navy Commander Bill Urban, according to Reuters...
Inspector Gotcha: New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman has zealously used his office to pursue cases favored by left-wing activists. After years of Wall Street–friendly Democrats and Republicans with crossover appeal, of Chuck Schumers and Michael Bloombergs and Hillary Clintons and George Patakis, New Yorkers were finally ready for a candidate from the authentic Left. The election victor, who’d worked closely with the Working Families Party and financed his run with nearly $1 million from unions, was a true movement progressive, at home in the sorts of gatherings where “Joe Hill” might be sung and people know who Emma Goldman was. Writing in—where else?—The Nation, the victor had earlier called for a resurgent Left to get beyond a mere “checklist” politics of demands and issues to a more “transformational” sort of politics, which, while promising to “make our lives better,” would also require that we “root out the assumptions about politics or economics or human nature that prevent us” from doing that. Of finding common ground and reaching across aisles, enough had been heard already: the real challenge was to “slow down the bone-crushing machinery of the contemporary conservative movement.”
These might sound like pages from the 2013 ascension of leftist New York City mayor Bill de Blasio. But, in fact, the script played out three years earlier, when New York’s progressives scored a breakthrough by electing as the state’s attorney general Eric Schneiderman, who had no prosecutorial experience but, as Ben Smith noted in a Politico profile the next year, had “spent his career building an ideological infrastructure for the left.” After edging out Nassau district attorney Kathleen Rice by 34 to 32 percent in a five-candidate primary, the Upper West Side state senator went on to win by 11 points in November against Republican candidate Dan Donovan. Last year, he won reelection against GOP challenger John Cahill, this time by a 13-point margin.
Hollande 'to give France's highest award to train heroes on Monday' French President Francois Hollande will present three young Americans and a British man with the country's top Legion d'Honneur medal at a ceremony on Monday in recognition of their bravery after they overpowered a gunman on a packed Thalys train, an Elysee source said.
A French citizen who also tackled the suspected jihadist but who wishes to remain anonymous will receive the honour at a later date, as will a Franco-American passenger who was hit by a bullet and is recovering in hospital, the source told AFP...
The Center for Medical Progress (CMP) released a trailer on August 21 advertising its eighth investigative video. In the two-minute clip, StemExpress CEO Cate Dyer admitted that her company receives “intact” (whole) aborted baby bodies from the abortion clinics they work with – and laughed at the thought of shipping baby heads...
Jindal spearheaded Louisiana's decision to defund Planned Parenthood clinics in the state. He has received a lot of opposition to his decision, but remains firm in his convictions...
California: "Land of Poverty" ...The original Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality press release cited California's dismal poverty rate as resulting from "a weak labor market and California's notoriously expensive housing." These are problems that can be moderated starting at the top, with the Governor and legislature. The notoriously expensive housing could be addressed by loosening regulations that allow more supply to be built at lower cost. True, the new supply would not be built in Santa Monica or Palo Alto. But additional, lower cost housing on the periphery, whether in Riverside County, the High Desert exurbs of Los Angeles and San Bernardino Counties, the San Francisco Bay Area exurbs or the San Joaquin Valley could begin to remedy the situation...
Forgetful scientists accidentally quadruple lithium-ion battery lifespan. ...
Achieving the new outer coating required a set time of soaking. The accident occurred when Wang and Li forgot to remove one batch of the nanoparticles from the soaking process. That batch ended up soaking for several hours longer than intended with the result being the sulfuric acid and titanium oxysulfate mix leaked into the 50nm nanoparticles and dissolved some of the aluminum inside. What this left was a nanoparticle with a 4nm outer shell of titanium hydroxide and an inner 30nm “yolk” of aluminum.
Rather than discarding this forgotten batch, they decided to test it by building batteries using these particles. It turns out they have potentially solved the problem of using aluminum for the anodes in the battery. The extra long soak meant the anodes did not expand and contract, in fact they created a battery that over 500 charge/discharge cycles retained up to four-times the capacity of the equivalent graphite anode batteries. These batteries last considerably longer in terms of usable lifespan and, according to MIT, can hold up to three-times the energy...
The 26-year-old Moroccan national, who was known to security services, came out of the toilet brandishing the gun and opened fire. Fortunately, three US Marines were nearby and overpowered him before he could massacre passengers.
The suspected terrorist had at least nine full magazines of ammunition holding almost 200 rounds. He was also carrying a knife....
First, the invitation. I invite you to join us this Saturday morning, August 22, at one of the three hundred protest gatherings at Planned Parenthood sites across the nation. Find the one nearest you. It will be 9:00–11:00 AM local time.
(I will join others as part of the prayer leadership at the Twin Cities event at 671 Vandalia Street in St. Paul. Parking is sparse. Park far. Walk much. Small sacrifice.)
Your presence on Saturday morning would mean at least this: “Killing unborn human beings is not an acceptable answer to crisis pregnancies. There are better ways to care for mom and child and dad.”
If you have watched the investigative videos from The Center for Medical Progress about Planned Parenthood, I suspect you would want your presence to mean much more....
Life is a Cabaret, Old Chum
...And despite it all, San Francisco remains a world-class city, a national treasure. Moreover, the city is booming due to the convention, tourist, and tech industries, to the point that even very small apartments rent for thousands of dollars a month.
Yet, amidst the old and new money, locals increasingly complain about how dirty the city is and that it smells like a sewer. Indeed, public urination—even defecation—has become an epidemic; recently a lamppost collapsed due to metal corrosion caused in part by years of being splashed with dog and human urine.
It isn’t just the growing number of homeless people in San Francisco who publicly relieve themselves. The other day, my wife saw an upscale-looking fellow on a busy street urinating against a wall in broad daylight...
Planned Parenthood horror: Babies are being born alive and murdered for their organs...
Aug. 20, 2015
Matt Walsh
Excerpt:
The most disturbing part comes next. We see footage of a baby in a dish moving its limbs, as O’Donnell tells us how she was instructed to take the baby with the beating heart, cut open its face, and extract its brain.
This isn’t just the sale of aborted children we’re dealing with; this is the dissection of living babies. Babies are being born alive and murdered for their organs. Meanwhile, the sole counter to this claim is that the children are actually murdered moments before birth. That’s obviously not a viable moral defense to begin with, and it isn’t true, either.
This is what we’re facing: a situation where the best case scenario is that babies are being brutally murdered while still in the uterus and then disassembled in petri dishes minutes later. Essentially, Planned Parenthood is caught with a bloody knife, standing over a dead body, and their whole excuse is that they didn’t just kill the victim — they killed him seven minutes ago. But even that, it turns out, is too high an ethical bar for Planned Parenthood to reliably jump over.
Instead, they take babies with beating hearts and dismember them.
Do I need to repeat that a hundred times for it to matter to our culture?
Babies with beating hearts are being dismembered and sold or parts.
Babies with beating hearts are being dismembered and sold for parts.
Babies with beating hearts are being dismembered and sold for parts.
If you use BuzzFeed as your primary source of news, however, you’d know nothing about the story.
The same goes for the video in which a top Planned Parenthood official said she needed a good price on aborted baby organs because, “I want a Lamborghini.” That little detail was also never reported. In fact, it’s been over a month since BuzzFeed published any standalone stories featuring details from newly released undercover videos...
Jewish Publisher to Rescue 2,000 Christians Fleeing the Islamic State ...Lord George Weidenfeld, a 95-year-old Jewish man who fled Nazi-occupied Austria in 1938 with the help of Christian Quakers, is now helping to save at least 2,000 Christians in Syria from the Islamic State.
He is using money he earned through his successful publishing business and the Weidenfeld Safe Havens Fund to fly the Christians to safe places in Poland and other nations...
Islamist Influence in Hollywood ...CAIR-NY has gone so far as to demand that CBS stop airing all films, TV and radio shows on the subject of Islamic terrorism, whether fact or fiction, claiming that these “defame” Muslims. CAIR-NY argued that the shows cause discrimination and subject Muslim children to harassment. “Not Without My Daughter,” starring Sally Field, and several Chuck Norris movies were among the films that CAIR wanted off the air. To boycott all CBS radio and TV shows from both the CBS News and entertainment divisions as well as their advertisers, CAIR-NY started an online petition. Consequently, CBS changed the title of a Chuck Norris film, telling the Los Angeles Times in 2003 that in an upcoming film on terrorism it would remove all portrayals of Muslims.
“24 Hours” was a hit syndicated TV series produced for the FOX Channel. It was about a counter-terrorism agent who tried to thwart cyber, biological and chemical terrorist attacks. It won numerous awards, including a Golden Globe and an Emmy. It showed villains from a range of backgrounds, including German, Russian, American and Muslim...
An affair to remember: The theft of data from a website that facilitates infidelity is a wake-up call The slogan of Ashley Madison, a website that arranges extramarital liaisons, is “Life is short. Have an affair.” Its home page shows a woman holding a finger to her lips. So much for promising to keep secrets. Last month a group of hackers called Impact Team stole the site’s user database and transaction history going back to 2007, and this week they released it online: more than 30m users’ names, addresses and personal details, along with GPS co-ordinates and sexual preferences. This trove of data is fiddly to download and search, but already users of the site are being outed, as journalists and activists comb through the records looking for celebrities, business leaders and politicians. A deluge of revelations seems likely in the coming days, as websites pop up that allow easy searching...
Despite the recent campaign to take down the large crosses atop many Chinese churches, Christianity is gaining ground in China, particularly among the well-educated.
In 1980 it was estimated that there were about 10 million Christians in China, now estimates say there are about 100 million, according to a Christian Today report...
The new dark ages, where the perfectly normal are branded bigots ...The demonisation of Faust shows how thoroughly the Christian viewpoint has been turned into a kind of hate speech. Something that was a standard outlook a few years ago is now treated as a pathology.
And as a liberal — small L — I find it deeply troubling that a moral outlook can be so swiftly put beyond the pale, branded “INAPPROPRIATE”.
Then there was Twitter, which went into meltdown over Faust’s and my comments. We’re bigots, haters, scumbags, “vomiting our bile”; we should be sent packing.
You know what? Scrap my comparison of gay marriage to God: 200 years ago, in developed Western countries, even the godless had a better chance of getting ahead than gay-marriage sceptics do today...
A Millennial’s Reflection on Spiritual Warfare ...Like most Millennial Americans, I admit that I am desensitized to demonic entities by the cheesy television shows about teens combating the supernatural and movies glamorizing forces of darkness. So while I accepted spiritual warfare as fact, I did not truly grasp the weight of its reality.
Christianity Today reports that after Anne Graham Lotz found her husband in the swimming pool, he was immediately taken to Rex Hospital’s ICU in Raleigh, North Carolina...
Decreasing immigration is overwhelmingly popular with the American electorate—especially women, minorities, liberal and independent voters with whom the Republican Party desperately needs to make inroads. Polls from Fox News and Gallup show that Americans — by a 2-to-1 ratio — want to see visa issuances reduced....
How the Supreme Court Abolished Article V of the Constitution
Who needs amendments if the Lawless Five are on your side?
By Robert A.J. Gagnon
8.14.15
On July 31 at the American Bar Association’s International Human Rights Award Luncheon, former Justice John Paul Stevens declared that, while the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment establishes a right to “gay marriage,” it does not protect an individual’s right to keep and bear arms.
Now when it comes to the issue of “gun rights” I have no personal dog in the hunt (so to speak). I’m not a gun owner. In most circumstances I wouldn’t recommend keeping a gun at home because I think statistically a gun kept at home is more likely to be used on someone in the home than on an intruder (though I wouldn’t want an intruder to know that I don’t have a gun at home).
Still, I marvel at Stevens’ ability to reject an application of the Fourteenth Amendment to a right clearly enumerated elsewhere in the Constitution (viz., “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” in the Second Amendment) while affirming its application to a supposed right not elsewhere even remotely alluded to in the Constitution (viz., the right of a person to marry a person of the same sex).
As Harvard-trained lawyer Brian Troyer commented, “You need look no farther to see that liberal jurisprudence has nothing to do with law or the Constitution except in the instrumental sense that when liberal judges pronounce their judgments on these issues they invoke the document as their excuse for imposing their personal policy preferences.”
In Obergefell v. Hodges Justice Kennedy, writing for the bare majority (Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan), based the case for the oxymoron that is “gay marriage” on the “due process” and “equal protection” clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. So far-fetched was the connection that its effect was to dumb down intelligible words that have an historical context to the subjectivity of a Rorschach inkblot test or a reading of tea leaves.
The text of the Constitution now means anything that five SCOTUS justices want it to mean. That, in turn, has the quite serious effect not only of tarnishing the Court’s reputation as impartial jurists but also of eradicating Article V of the U.S. Constitution, which specifies how the Constitution may be amended: “The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution… which… shall be valid… as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states….”
... the rest
A handful of unelected lawless justices have acted as legislators—worse still, as amenders and thus violators of the Constitution—by imposing their ideology on the Constitution. If they can legislate so brazenly from the bench, they can just as easily claim that the restriction of marriage to two persons or to non-kin is a deprivation “of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” and a denial of “the equal protection of the laws.”
As in past videos, the most recent video features an interview with a former technician for Planned Parenthood partner StemExpress Holly O’Donnell. “I want you to see something kind of cool, kind of neat,” O’Donnell says her supervisor asked her after performing an abortion. She was shocked to see “the most gestated fetus, the closest thing to a baby I’ve seen.”
“And she just taps the heart, and it starts beating. And I’m sitting here and I’m looking at this fetus, and its heart is beating, and I don’t know what to think,” she continued...
New Video: Planned Parenthood Harvested Brain Of Live Baby ...
O’Donnell detailed how the abortionist performed the abortion in order to “procure” the baby’s brain. O’Donnell also described how the abortionist made her harvest the baby’s brain by cutting his face open with scissors.
In one portion of the video, a prospective organ buyer asked a supplier whether a baby’s heart is still beating during the procedure.
“So you know there are times when after the procedure is done that the heart is still beating,” Ben Van Handel, a Novogenix executive, told the buyer...
Syria’s top antiquities scholar beheaded by IS in ancient Palmyra ...Islamic State militants beheaded one of Syria’s most prominent antiquities scholars in the ancient town of Palmyra, then strapped his body from one of the town’s Roman columns, Syrian state media and an activist group said Wednesday.
The killing of 81-year-old Khaled al-Asaad was the latest atrocity perpetrated by the group, which has captured a third of both Syria and Iraq. Since IS overran Palmyra in May, there have been fears the extremists, who have destroyed famed archaeological sites in Iraq, would demolish its 2,000-year-old Roman-era city at the town’s edge, one of the Mideast’s most spectacular archaeological sites...
Albert Mohler: When ‘Discernment’ Leads to Disaster ...The lesson — once a church or denomination is untethered from the inerrancy of the Bible, there is no brake on the relativizing effects of cultural pressure...
Online options are one of ten reasons I’ve previously outlined on why even committed Christians are attending church less frequently (here are the other 9).
But just how seriously is technology digging into attendance and what can a church leader do in response?
The question is challenging because the change happening around us is so rapid, and those who fail to respond will likely be left clinging to a model that worked a decade ago...
Hilton Pulls On-Demand Pornography from Hotel Rooms ...“We believe in offering our guests a high degree of choice and control during their stays with us, including Wi-Fi on personal devices. However, we have listened carefully to our customers and have determined that adult video-on-demand entertainment is not in keeping with our company’s vision and goals moving forward.”
Previously, Hilton was on the National Center for Sexual Exploitation’s “dirty dozen” list of companies that precipitate sexual perversion and addiction. Now, human rights groups and Christians are applauding Hilton for its change of practice...
Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. ...GK Chesterton image
The Coddling of the American Mind; Belfast Pastor on Trial for Offending Islam...more
Americans Joining ISIS: Giving 'Em Something to Believe In Klavan and Whittle
Belfast Pastor on Trial for Offending Islam ...Pastor McConnell's prosecution is one of a growing number of examples in which British authorities — who routinely ignore incendiary speech by Muslim extremists — are using hate speech laws to silence Christians.
In what was described as an "extraordinary morning," more than 1,000 people appeared outside the courthouse singing hymns and waving placards — declaring "Christianity under persecution" and "Evil Sharia law is not welcome in our country" — in a mass show of solidarity for McConnell, who was cheered and applauded as he entered and exited the courthouse...
Not a New Thing: Aborted Baby Body Parts Have Been Sold for Years ...In 2009, Royall interviewed a doctor who operated a late-term abortion clinic, who, she reports, asked to remain anonymous, but was very forthcoming with his information on the process of fetal tissue sales.
“He made clear that what is described above is business as usual in the fetal body parts industry in America. Many a child is slaughtered in the womb and then rendered, packaged and brokered to a multitude of industries, whose products and projects comprise the aftermarket for the roughly 1.2 million U.S. abortions annually,” Royall reported.
“It’s big business and getting bigger,” she continued, also commenting on the fact that most people in this industry view it as just that--a business like any other business.
In 2009, the business of fetal tissue sales was an $85 billion industry...
University of Massachusetts caught buying fetal parts to create humanized mice ...“Just a few years ago the thought of aborting babies, selling their cadavers, and growing their parts in mice would have sounded like some kind of science fiction horror novel. Now this practice has secretly grown until it is an everyday occurrence,” said Newman. “There are ethics breaches – and very likely criminal activity — at every level of this corrupt enterprise.”...
Gay Activist: James Dobson Was Right About Our Evil Intentions ...Here's the bottom line: Homosexual activists don't want the white picket fence; they want to burn down the white picket fence. The endgame is not to achieve so-called "marriage equality" but, rather, to render marriage reality meaningless.
Masha Gessen, a lesbian journalist, activist and author, expressly admitted this fact in a 2012 interview with "ABC Radio": "It's a no-brainer that [homosexuals] should have the right to marry," she said. "But I also think equally that it's a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist. ... [F]ighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we are going to do with marriage when we get there—because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie."
Homosexual activist and pornographer Clinton Fein echoes Gessen's candid sentiments: "Demand the institution [of marriage] and then wreck it," he once wrote. "James Dobson was right about our evil intentions," he quipped. "We just plan to be quicker than he thought."
The goal is to water down marriage until marriage is pointless. And as evidenced by the burgeoning legal push for polygamous and incestuous "marriages"—even for the "right" to "marry" a robot—sexual anarchists are well on their way to achieving this goal...
The Economist: What’s driving American firms overseas AMERICAN companies are on the move. On August 6th CF Industries, a fertiliser manufacturer, and Coca-Cola Enterprises, a drinks bottler, both said they would move their domiciles to Britain after concluding mergers with non-American firms. Five days later Terex, which makes cranes, announced a merger which will involve moving its legally recognised headquarters from Westport, Connecticut, in New York’s tri-state area, to the tiny town of Hyvinkää, Finland. What’s driving these firms to pack up and go?
For more than 30 years companies, especially American ones, have been merging with foreign firms or acquiring them outright in order to shift their tax bases abroad. It started in 1982, when McDermott, a construction company, outsmarted America’s Internal Revenue Service (the IRS) by moving its base from New Orleans to Panama, where it had a subsidiary. Ever since, this kind of move, called a “corporate inversion”, has been an attractive way for American companies with overseas earnings to reduce their tax bills. Because the American taxman has unusually long arms, companies based in the United States who earn profits abroad can end up with piles of cash “stuck” overseas: earnings that face hefty corporate taxation the instant they are brought to America (for example to pay staff or to invest). An inversion might not affect a company’s day-to-day operations, but by changing the country of domicile officially, it can offer a way out. Since this means less revenue for Uncle Sam, the American government has been trying to desperately stop companies from fleeing and taking their revenue with them. But only rarely has the government been fleet-footed enough to catch them...
On Friday, it shot ash 12km (seven miles) into the air..
The Coddling of the American Mind-How Trigger Warnings Are Hurting Mental Health on Campus ...But vindictive protectiveness teaches students to think in a very different way. It prepares them poorly for professional life, which often demands intellectual engagement with people and ideas one might find uncongenial or wrong. The harm may be more immediate, too. A campus culture devoted to policing speech and punishing speakers is likely to engender patterns of thought that are surprisingly similar to those long identified by cognitive behavioral therapists as causes of depression and anxiety. The new protectiveness may be teaching students to think pathologically...
Amazon Is Cruel To Be Kind ... The Times report doesn’t leave room for the possibility that Bezos would be this self-aware (little surprise: being “vocally self-critical” is an Amazon leadership principle). Accepting that he is, what are we to make of a management philosophy that leads to employees being punished for caring for the dying, welcoming the newborn, and otherwise performing the most basic acts of human duty and love?
Put simply, I think the cruelties of Amazon’s corporate culture simply reflect the seriousness with which Bezos takes the progressive technological faith so many others only profess. If one assumes that the world is to be improved mostly through increases in efficiency (rather than acts of inefficient and gratuitous love), then the supreme duty of kindness is to advance technological progress. This is a quasi-religious “mission” (Amazon’s term) that demands heroic asceticism. Like the Society of Jesus, it may not be for everyone, but those who persist will have the pleasure of knowing they are serving the highest purpose. Ruthlessness may haunt the office culture, but kindness—understood by a certain technological logic—is the overarching goal...
What Happens to Your Checked Luggage at the Airport
Fathers and mothers, do not forget that children learn more by the eye than they do by the ear... Imitation is a far stronger principle with children than memory. What they see has a much stronger effect on their minds than what they are told. ...JC Ryle image
StemExpress cuts ties with PP; Christian Captives Freed...more
Christian Captives Freed in Sudan, Vietnam, and Iran ...The same week Sudan freed Ruot and Reith, Vietnamese authorities released Catholic blogger Paulus Le Van Son and Protestant activist Nguyen Van Oai. Both served four-year prison terms for “trying to overthrow the legitimate government.” They were arrested during a 2011 crackdown against bloggers and others with ties to human and religious rights groups, Asia News reported. Radio Free Asia (RFA) said authorities detained them without warrants and gave them limited access to lawyers...
Human tissue firm cuts ties with Planned Parenthood after videos ...StemExpress, one of the tissue companies that works with Planned Parenthood, is cutting its ties with the women’s health organization after a series of sting videos that have prompted congressional inquiries.
“We value our various partnerships but, due to the increased questions that have arisen over the past few weeks, we feel it prudent to terminate activities with Planned Parenthood,” the company said in a statement. “While we value our business relationship with Planned Parenthood, that work represents a small percentage of our overall business activity and we must focus our limited resources on resolving these inquiries.”...
Judge's Impartiality Questioned in Abortion Video Case ...If a judge won’t recuse herself, and if the parties involved don’t raise the issue or pursue it further, judges end up sitting in on cases despite public perception of a conflict of interest or lack of impartiality...
Parents ready to abandon Ontario public schools as sex-ed comes ...Critics say the controversial Liberal curriculum to be rolled out this September in the province’s publicly funded schools violates children’s innocence by pushing a morally offensive and physically dangerous sexual agenda.
A CLC analysis documents that the curriculum introduces issues of consent in Grade 1, homosexuality in Grade 3, masturbation in Grade 6, and oral and anal sex in Grade 7. It advises Grade 7 students to carry a condom, Grade 8 students to have a sexual plan, and teaches that there are six genders rather than two biological sexes.
And as the London branch of Parents Alliance of Ontario (PAO) stated in an email to LifeSiteNews: “All the questions asked by those parents all came to the one in the end: ‘What’s going to happen to our children in Sept if the new sex-ed is marching right into our school’s classrooms?’”...
An ordained United Church of Canada minister who believes in neither God nor Bible said Wednesday she is prepared to fight an unprecedented attempt to boot her from the pulpit for her beliefs.
Unprecedented? Is there a history of the United Church of Canada applauding its atheist pastors? No. It turns out the church had never investigated a minister for fitness to be a minister. Never. How is that possible?...
Church of England 'on the margins of extinction', analyst claims ...The Church in Wales, Scottish Episcopal Church and the US Episcopal Church are all firmly under the extinction threshold, he predicts, while the Church of England is merely "on the margins of extinction". He admits to "wiggle" room in the statistics but not enough to delay the extinctions by much.
"If current trends continue, the Episcopal churches of the USA, Scotland and Wales are near the end of their lifespans, and will be seeing massive church closures from around 2025 onwards," he warns.
Hayward suggests the Church of England could be holding up better than the other three because it is established and therefore seen as the nation's church. He says it also has a stronger evangelical wing, making it generally more conservative.
In the US, by contrast, many conservatives have left The Episcopal Church...
If God wants you to do something, He'll make it possible for you to do it, but the grace He provides comes only with the task and cannot be stockpiled beforehand. We are dependent on Him from hour to hour, and the greater our awareness of this fact, the less likely we are to faint or fail in the crisis. ...Louis Cassels image
Anglican Unscripted is the only video newscast in the Anglican Church. Each Episode Kevin, George, Allan and Peter bring you news and prospective from around the globe. Please Donate - http://anglicanink.com/donate
Nigeria: “This May Be Our Last Communion”; Speaking Truth on Homosexual Marriage and Parenting...more
Speaking Truth on Homosexual Marriage and Parenting ...It seems they have learned well the lessons of past experts in the manipulation of information. It was Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister, who once said, “If you tell any lie long enough, often enough, and loud enough, people will come to believe it.”
And that is exactly how truth is crucified and radical agendas are implemented. Keep the party line going at all costs, and refuse to run with any alternative points of view. We find this all the time in most Western media outlets. They are propagandists for all things homosexual. If, by some minor miracle, a contrary point of view is heard, it is as rare as it is remarkable.
An example of this occurred last night, and I almost fell out of my chair when I came across it. And it happened on the ABC no less. My only guess is they have been taking so much heat for their obvious secular left bias that they felt the need to offer a token view that differs from their own.
I guess they think if they actually allow a conservative voice on, maybe once every few months, that will allow them to claim that they are balanced and fair. Anyway, back to last night’s shocker. Katy Faust, who was raised by lesbians, and opposes homosexual marriage, was actually allowed onto Lateline last night... Interview: Katy Faust here
Nigeria: “This May Be Our Last Communion” ...“We tried to gather up the children and get them out or hide them,” Reverend O said. His voice faltered and he was silent for a moment as a tear rolled down his cheek. “My daughter was among them,” he told us. Then he asked the people, “Do you want me to close the service so you can escape?” After pausing to remove his glasses and wipe his tear-filled eyes, Reverend O continued, “They said to me, ‘You taught us that Jesus is worthy dying for. This may be our last Communion. We will take it and die.'”...
The Habit of Seeing God Face to Face ...Let me suggest that one way would be to develop the habitus of seeing God face to face, and one of the best ways of doing this, the saints tell us, is to begin to see the face of God in others we meet everyday. So I ask myself: When I meet others, do I see in them the face of God? Do I search for it, in their eyes and in their faces? Do I even look in their eyes at all? And so too, when they see me, do I show them the face of God? Or do I more often show them the face of that other fellow from the less pleasant place, who isn’t exactly the source of everlasting joy?
We are made, we are told, “in the image and likeness of God.” That’s the original plan, at least. But we have marred the image. We no longer are a clear mirror reflecting God’s benign countenance. We’ve become like one of those fun house mirrors that makes a person look misshapen and deformed. How, then, do we begin once again to reflect the true image and likeness of God?
The Ten Commandments are good place to begin; they reveal to us what it means to be in the image of God. And the Beatitudes show us what it is to be “like Christ.” There is, thus, we might say, a moral dimension to the imago dei.
To know that we have been made in the image of God and that, although we have marred the image, it has been restored by Christ, should come as good news to human beings who are often enough disposed to think of themselves as either the playthings of petty, capricious gods or the accidental by-products of a random cosmic event in an essentially meaningless universe. But it is not only news, it is a command. It is not only a piece of static information; it is a dynamic promise that should propel us forward...
"Shut Up, Bigot!": The Intolerance of Tolerance
Conservatives are called bigots because those who embrace the new sexual mores are beholden to the new tolerance as a plausibility structure. Postmodern liberals cannot comprehend the idea that one could simultaneously reject a belief and accept the person who holds it...
Abortion Is The New Slavery ...So—setting aside the question of whether Planned Parenthood’s activities are legal—what exactly is wrong with using aborted children’s bodies for profitable research? I see three key problems...
ISIS Enshrines a Theology of Rape
In the moments before he raped the 12-year-old girl, the Islamic State fighter took the time to explain that what he was about to do was not a sin. Because the preteen girl practiced a religion other than Islam, the Quran not only gave him the right to rape her — it condoned and encouraged it, he insisted...
The love, therefore, wherewith God loveth, is incomprehensible and immutable. For it was not from the time that we were reconciled unto Him by the blood of His Son that He began to love us; but He did so before the foundation of the world, that we also might be His sons along with His Only-begotten, before as yet we had any existence of our own. ...Augustine of Hippoimage
Sixth PP video claims fetal parts were used without consent; How Pro-Choice Women Undermine Feminism...more
New Planned Parenthood video claims fetal parts were used without consent ...The latest video from The Center for Medical Progress featured an interview with a former lab technician, whose company partnered with Planned Parenthood. The woman, who described herself as an “ex-procurement technician,” claimed that her co-workers sometimes did not seek a woman’s consent before obtaining aborted fetus tissue to be used for medical research.
“There were times when they would just take what they wanted, and these mothers don’t know,” the former employee, Holly O’Donnell, said in the 10-minute video.
The anti-abortion group’s weeks-long campaign against Planned Parenthood has been defined by its secretly recorded footage, which included graphic images of the medical workers handling aborted fetus parts in Petri dishes...
The Real Story of the Summer
...What the Planned Parenthood videos have revealed about liberal elites and the dynamics of American politics is extraordinary. Outside of those who consume conservative media, Americans are more likely to have heard of Cecil, the dead Zimbabwe lion, than of the videos. Those who have heard of both stories know more about Cecil's last moments than about fetuses having their brains destroyed so that their organs—their human organs—could be sold.
The July 30th NBC Nightly News report on the Planned Parenthood videos was, in its own way, a beautiful example of how properly motivated journalists can make an inherently interesting subject incomprehensible and irritating. Imagine if a network had covered Romney's infamous (surreptitiously taped) 47 percent remarks by never quoting Romney, including clips of a hostile interview with the journalists who released the Romney tape, and then had ended the report with the suggestion that the attacks on Romney could lead to declining business investment and job growth...
How Pro-Choice Women Undermine Feminism ...What else is selective abortion but a way to reserve the right to end a life because women need protection from their decisions? These same women who proclaim themselves as in need of being bailed out of consequences resulting from their own agency are asking for the right to eliminate another’s life. As if they are too weak of a gender to manage another 20 weeks of pregnancy to ensure the baby can go to someone who will love it, if they cannot. A desire to be seen as powerful and strong cannot stand as long as women continually prove themselves too fearful of their own biology...
At least 47 dead in market bomb blast in NE Nigeria ...The explosion ripped through the weekly market in the village of Sabon Gari, around 135 kilometres (85 miles) south of Borno state capital Maiduguri, during peak trading around 1:15 pm (1230 GMT), the sources said.
"We have received at least 47 dead bodies and at least 50 with injuries from the Sabon Gari market, where there was a blast this afternoon," a nurse at Biu General Hospital, around 50 kilometres (30 miles) away, told AFP...
Jesus Suffers with Us—and We with Him ...First, even during the darkest patch, when we feel forsaken by God, he is, in fact, present—as the Psalms and the cross reveal to us. If we share in the fullness of Christ’s life, we at times will feel Godforsaken. And in those moments we know something beyond our feelings: that God is present mysteriously at the moment he seems most absent. Furthermore, just as Christ saw light—the fruit of his suffering, salvation for others—as he was still suffering, so we have hope in the midst of our suffering, knowing that God will work all things together for our good (Rom. 8:28).
Second, all our sufferings are significant. The twists and turns of life aren’t obstacles to God’s plan for our lives but necessary steps to get there. God uses our sufferings that we might share in the life of Christ. As Paul put it, “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead” (Phil. 3:10–11, NIV).
Suffering is not something we want to avoid. Rather, like Paul, we want to pass through it, for it is a key means of experiencing deeper union with Christ...
